A post I wanted to do for a long time but RL keeps intervening.

(Would like to do it at home in a computer were I could look up every detail to get it right. Stuck on a mobile device instead, were I loose all I typed, should I use too much memory to look up the exact cards or exact FAQ wording - nevertheless I will post it now, otherwise it will be stuck at draft state in my head for another 6 months).

So FFG from time to time keeps missing certain combos and releases (accidently? on purpose?) undercosted stuff. After quite some time finally comes some Nerf hammer....only to often hit not the real offender, but some circumstantial upgrade. Which is killed off, while the real offender still thrives, just switching around some upgrades.

We had a lot of these, just some like

-Advanced slam nerf killing non-Miranda K-wings

-R4 Agromech

-Deadeye (was never a problem before JM5K)

-Zuckuss (was never a problem on G1A or other ships with normal dials)

-weird rulings makings 2 evade tokens useless (Lando, and others) etc.

Next victim is probably Genius (Nymranda), Genius and 0pts is totally fine on a Y-wing, cause you will unavoidable hit yourself. Nerfing him removes the Y-wing-fun-combo.

At the same time X-wings gets more and more bloated. OP stuff like Sabine crew restricts future game design space, the Resistance Bomber has no crew slot due to her, removing some fun combos. Unhinged existing restricting 3 speed maneuver dials. Before power creep started in earnest no Imperial turrets due to Ruthlessness. Or e.g. Vaksai title, FFG has to be wary of that when releasing future 1pt mods and EPTs (although with all the Powercreep vaksaied Kihraxzes right now seem to look not being overpowered). Also more and more weird restrictions, like "only-unique-Agromech" in order to avoid Unhinged.

So, if FFG instead would post lists of certain forbidden combos for tournament play, like you cannot field

Pilot A with upgrade B .

Upgrade C is not allowed in the whole list if ship D is present.

Would that be better?

Frees design space. Casually you can still field some combos. Avoiding having ship packs where certain cards are now completely unusable.

Would be an extensive and long taboo-list yes, but the current FAQ and some of the back and force rulings are a really tough mountain to climb for any new player.

What do you think?

Tyler Tippet, pride and joy of the Empire, once mentioned a game that had its very own "squadbuilder" (loose term) that has its very own live updates for competitive gaming. Cards were changed, point values fixed, etc - all live on the app.

I think most of us NEVER look at the cards when squadbuilding, we look at an app, so this isn't a big deal when compared to the alternative. This kind of method allows for rapid responses to meta problems, and all is needed is a note in every expansion (or maybe just the core rulebook) that "for competitive gaming please download our app or visit our online squadbuilder for the most up to date material."

Also, Paul said bombs are fine.

9 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

A post I wanted to do for a long time but RL keeps intervening.

(Would like to do it at home in a computer were I could look up every detail to get it right. Stuck on a mobile device instead, were I loose all I typed, should I use too much memory to look up the exact cards or exact FAQ wording - nevertheless I will post it now, otherwise it will be stuck at draft state in my head for another 6 months).

So FFG from time to time keeps missing certain combos and releases (accidently? on purpose?) undercosted stuff. After quite some time finally comes some Nerf hammer....only to often hit not the real offender, but some circumstantial upgrade. Which is killed off, while the real offender still thrives, just switching around some upgrades.

We had a lot of these, just some like

-Advanced slam nerf killing non-Miranda K-wings

-R4 Agromech

-Deadeye (was never a problem before JM5K)

-Zuckuss (was never a problem on G1A or other ships with normal dials)

-weird rulings makings 2 evade tokens useless (Lando, and others) etc.

Next victim is probably Genius (Nymranda), Genius and 0pts is totally fine on a Y-wing, cause you will unavoidable hit yourself. Nerfing him removes the Y-wing-fun-combo.

At the same time X-wings gets more and more bloated. OP stuff like Sabine crew restricts future game design space, the Resistance Bomber has no crew slot due to her, removing some fun combos. Unhinged existing restricting 3 speed maneuver dials. Before power creep started in earnest no Imperial turrets due to Ruthlessness. Or e.g. Vaksai title, FFG has to be wary of that when releasing future 1pt mods and EPTs (although with all the Powercreep vaksaied Kihraxzes right now seem to look not being overpowered). Also more and more weird restrictions, like "only-unique-Agromech" in order to avoid Unhinged.

So, if FFG instead would post lists of certain forbidden combos for tournament play, like you cannot field

Pilot A with upgrade B .

Upgrade C is not allowed in the whole list if ship D is present.

Would that be better?

Frees design space. Casually you can still field some combos. Avoiding having ship packs where certain cards are now completely unusable.

Would be an extensive and long taboo-list yes, but the current FAQ and some of the back and force rulings are a really tough mountain to climb for any new player.

What do you think?

That's sort of how things work in FFG's Star Wars LCG, to my knowledge. Cards come in blocks of 6, and you'll build a 60 card deck out of 10 blocks. Some blocks have been ruled mutually exclusive to each other. In such a card came, there are some combos of cards which could lead to infinite recursion, and they don't want that to happen, without effecting the core mechanics, which often are fine in isolation.

The reason not to do it is that it's complicated. It's probably easier in this game to have a list of errata for each card, and these errata are self contained. A matrix of which things aren't allowed with others is, I think, a hair more complicated. Not that much more complicated (I mean, it always kinda stinks when you have to explain to someone why TIE/x7 doesn't work the way it says on the card), but it is an added level of bloat.

Ultimately, however, I don't know that it's not too complicated to use. I think I have a preference for self-contained errata, however.

Removing certain combos? That's what a nerf is

Torp scouts op? Remove the combo of torps + scouts whole keeping torps and scouts otherwise unchanged! (Minus the whole sad goodbye to unhinged)

A restricted list is a much better way to go than some of these insane errata.

Which is odd, because Alex Davy seems to be very approving of the changeover in Netrunner to a traditional Banned and Restricted list.

4 hours ago, Sithborg said:

A restricted list is a much better way to go than some of these insane errata.

Which is odd, because Alex Davy seems to be very approving of the changeover in Netrunner to a traditional Banned and Restricted list.

Banning should have been a thing a long time ago. If the branch is diseased, prune it off. The tree will do better without it.

It kills the offending card and combo, without collateral damage. If desired, a lesser variant can be made. Furthermore, future design ideas do not need to dance around an existing design flaw. Best of all, no errata, just a list of tournament illegal cards.

The card can still be used for all casual play. The fact that it's banned automatically puts a "use at your own risk" warning on it.

People who complain that this ruins their investment aren't really interested in the long term health of the game, IMHO.

I made that suggestion back in Wave 5 but it received some negative feedback and was not popular. I actually agree with those that say it is a bad idea, in a customisable game you don't want to take away options from players.

The next idea was to put certain pilot/upgrade combos on a tax. Which was back in Wave 6. As example Soontir Fel (27 points) and Push the Limit(3 points) would end up costing 31 points (+1 for the tax). The idea was to take the Top 8 from Worlds and the Top 4 from all the nationals and all the pilot/upgrade combos would be listed as a table combo.

The only issue for that is if naked generic pilot swarms became a thing the upgrade combo tax would have no effect. So in addition the idea was that naked pilot cards that were known to be tournament winners would also be taxed 1 point unless they take an upgrade. So Academy pilot would be 13 points without any upgrades. An Academy Pilot with TIEx2 would also be 13 points. Thing is though there is now a lot of 0 point modifications that sort of throw that format into ineffectual almost to the point of ridiculous. I mean TIE swarms could still take guidance chips for 0 points and get around the naked pilot tax. I guess you would have to reword it to minimum point cost +1 so they would have to put in an upgrade with a point cost to tax them.

Needless to say this never came to fruition, although I think it would be an easier meta alternative format to maintain than @MajorJuggler 's attempt to balance X-wing by redoing every single pilot and upgrade card.